The Prince of Darkness: Radical Evil and the Power of Good in History

De: Jeffrey Burton Russell

Narrado por: Gordon Greenhill

The Devil, Satan, Lucifer, Mephistopheles - throughout history the Prince of Darkness, the Western world's most powerful symbol of evil, has taken many names and shapes. Jeffrey Burton Russell here chronicles the remarkable story of the Devil from antiquity to the present. While recounting how past generations have personified evil, he deepens our understanding of the ways in which people have dealt with the enduring problem of radical evil.

Russell uncovers the origins of the concept of the Devil in various early cultures and then traces its evolution in Western thought from the time of the ancient Hebrews through the first centuries of the Christian era. Next he turns to the medieval view of the Devil, focusing on images found in folklore, scholastic thought, art, literature, mysticism, and witchcraft. Finally, he follows the Devil into our own era, where he draws on examples from theology, philosophy, art, literature, and popular culture to describe the great changes in this traditional notion of evil brought about by the intellectual and cultural developments of modern times.

The Prince of Darkness invites readers to confront these and other critical questions as they explore the past faces of that figure who has been called the second most famous personage in Christianity.

The book is published by Cornell University Press.

©1988 Cornell University (P)2017 Redwood Audiobooks

Helping Define a Difficult Idea

The evolution of the idea of the devil and perception of human morality in The West was fascinating.

Wonderfully engaging

I highly recommend this book to all who are interested in learning more about radical evil and its implications.

Utterly Magnificent

The breadth of thought here is awe inspiring and unmatched on this very difficult subject

Very interesting book!

Drawing from several sources the author evaluates what or who the devil is. Much of the philosophical analysis far outshines many books devoted to philosophy. The reader is easy to listen to and uses proper pronunciation and good inflection throughout. I thoroughly enjoyed this audio book!

Well done!!!!

I haven’t gotten around to reading Russell’s full set of volumes on the devil but just found this on audible. Just as he says at the beginning, this more brief volume is for the reader whose interest is immediate rather than academic and it suited my interest perfectly! His scope is broad enough (poetry, drama, literature, philosophy, history, theology, folklore) to offer serious knowledge and insight and foster understanding but is stream lined skillfully so that the reader never feels like they are reading a dissertation for someone’s thesis.

Frustrating Illogic

So, the good part. The performance was great. It’s competent, charismatic, and never monotone or unclear. I loved the reader’s voice.

The bad part is the entire book. It was dreadful to listen to this. It credulously repeated mythology as though we could learn from the frankly silly stories of medieval Europe, while making very few actual arguments about the nature of evil. It repeated some of the history of theology, with shallow editorailzing comments. It treated it as facially incomprehensible to question the goodness of God or the evil of Satan, not on the basis of logical arguments, but because of a thought-stopping linguistic prescription. Evil is defined as evil, end of story. And it’s like… really? I’m dying here. That’s pathetic. It’s so stupid. The author gets worse whenever they address satanism or the admiration of rebellion, which they regard as illogical and even depraved, and it’s like… what is this ignorantly evil cultural conservativism? This guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but feels the right to talk as an authority about it nonetheless.

There’s a lot of interesting things to say about evil, and the author barely said any of them. This was a waste of my time.